Assembly requires the placement of one part upon another. In the past, this has been manually accomplished, particularly in those cases where small parts of different sizes and shapes were to be placed upon different locations on a larger support. Automated assembly technology originated in the grasp and placement of the same size part in the same location, and then proceeded to grasp and placement of the same size part in different locations. This type of assembly is particularly noticed on a printed wiring board where complex wiring interconnections can be provided by etched conductive paths on a dielectric board. Components are grasped, picked up, and placed in position on the printed wiring board and are secured thereon. In handling such components, most of the prior art developments have been in the category of dedicated tooling, where the tooling is designed to perform one function or handle components of a single size. Such dedicated tooling is expensive, if it can only be used in such a limited manner. In addition, such dedicated tooling does not have the adaptability that it can handle components of different sizes in the same series of assembly operations. Therefore, such assembly equipment is of limited scope and value. Thus, there is need for assembly devices which have a broad scale of utility and which can grasp and hold parts of different sizes.